police – Deep Dark Thoughts

The Cat is Out of the Bag

Sometimes, despite your best intentions, things don’t go as planned. Even when you try to do everything right, there are days when the odds are just stacked against you. I can personally recall an event in my life that went wrong before I even knew that I had screwed up.

I was still working for the Hillsborough Police Department when this happened, and although it wasn’t anything terrible that occurred, it is an accident that I still think about on occasion. I was assigned to patrol and working the south end of the town when I received a radio announcement that a burglary alarm had been activated at one of our private residences. I acknowledged that I had received the dispatch call and was heading for the location in question.

Because we typically received thousands of residential alarm calls every year, and because on average less than one percent of those calls were the result of an actual burglary, I advised dispatch that I did not need a cover officer and I would advise if I needed assistance when I arrived at the house.

Although any police officers reading this will immediately point out that responding to an alarm call without a cover officer is a mistake, I just want to make it clear that this is not the mistake I am referring to in this blog. That’s coming up in a minute.

I arrived at the house and parked my patrol vehicle a few doors away so as not to advertise to any potential burglars that I was coming. I then began a systematic check of all doors and windows around the home to determine if anyone had attempted (or succeeded) in gaining entrance to the house. I could hear the interior alarm ringing as I wandered around the house.

While checking the side yard, I found a door that led into a laundry room. The door was unlocked and opened easily when I turned the doorknob. I announced on my radio that I had found an open door and requested a cover officer at this time. Better late than never, I suppose.

Because the alarm was still blaring, and burglars generally did not stick around when loud noises were announcing their presence, I assumed the house was most likely empty and decided to go inside and check for damages or theft.

As I opened the door, I saw a grey and white striped cat poke its head out through the gap. It meowed at me, clearly very upset at the loud noises in its house. It had probably been rudely awakened from a pleasant nap on some windowsill. The cat looked up at me as if to say, “make it stop,” then darted outside between my legs.

I let him go, figuring he was better off in the yard rather than inside with all that noise. I went into the laundry room and closed the door behind me. From the laundry room, I found another open door leading into the house. I began a systematic search of the residence. My partner arrived a few minutes later and assisted in the search. We found nothing out of the ordinary and decided the alarm had been an accident. Possibly even caused by the very cat I had let outside.

I walked back to the laundry room, planning to leave by the same door and attempt to lock it behind me. As I looked at the door, I noticed for the first time, a sign written with a black sharpie on a piece of paper. It said:

PLEASE DO NOT LET THE CAT OUTSIDE

Okay. Too late for that. In my defense, who the hell puts a sign on the inside of the door where anybody reading it has already let said cat out into the yard? With a sigh, I removed a business card from my pocket and wrote a note to the homeowner apologizing for letting Fluffy out of the house, along with the number to the police department in case they wanted to make a complaint.

Looking out into the yard, I noticed a grey and white cat perched on the fence separating the property from the neighbor’s yard. I immediately ran over, grabbed it, and carried it back into the house. I figured, I couldn’t go back in time and prevent the cat from getting out, but perhaps I could put things right by returning it to the house. The animal scratched, bit, and hissed the whole way back into the residence.

I admit to feeling a bit of concern when I noticed the cat in my arms did not have a collar or name tag on it. I would have sworn the cat that bolted out of the house had been wearing a red collar. I wasn’t certain. I could have been mistaken. It’s also possible that the cat had managed to take the collar off when it got outside.

Maybe.

Regardless, I removed the note I had written from the house and tore it up. I didn’t want to leave any evidence behind in case I had accidentally performed a cat swap. I figured I could always come back when the homeowners came home and discovered that someone had broken in, stolen their cat, and replaced it with a stray.

I would take the report, nod solemnly, and tell them that we would search diligently for the perpetrator that had switched cats. Then I would never speak of this incident again.

I never got a call back. I like to think that’s because I actually managed to find the correct cat. I suppose it is also possible the owners didn’t notice, or didn’t care enough to say anything.

Either way, if you ever come across someone who tells you a story about the day they left one cat in the house, then came home later to find a different cat living with them, I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention my name.

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Friendly Rivalry

For as far back as I can remember, the fire departments and police departments have had an ongoing rivalry. It isn’t heated or vicious by any means, but whenever members of both agencies get together there are always good natured (and a few not so good natured) comments made about the effectiveness of one agency or the other.

For example, fire fighters refer to police as “blue canaries.” This is a reference to the fact that police officers typically arrive at emergency calls first since there are more of us and we are already in our vehicles driving around when the calls come out. When fire fighters arrive at the scene, they look for the cops. If the blue canaries are still alive and walking around, they know that it is safe for them to come in.

Why does this rivalry exist? I’m not sure, but I think it’s because fire fighters feel emotionally insecure around cops. They know that if they had only scored a few more points on their civil service exams, they too could have been employed in law enforcement.

But despite this give and take, I have to admit that when fire and police are working together, we can accomplish some really great things.

I am reminded of a specific incident that occurred over a decade ago while I was working for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office. I was on patrol and I was dispatched to an apartment complex because a man had brandished a knife at a fire fighter.

Apparently, someone living in the apartment complex had stopped taking his medication against his doctor’s recommendations. The man had begun to hallucinate and hear voices and, realizing what was happening to him, he called 9-1-1 and asked for the fire department to come get him and transport him to the hospital where he could get some help. Unfortunately, when medical personnel arrived at his house, he was in the middle of a full psychotic break and he attacked the first fire fighter at his door with a knife.

The fire department called and requested that police respond to assist.

When I arrived, I was met by the Fire Captain on scene, a tall, fit looking gentleman who appeared camera ready for next year’s fire department wall calendar. He smiled at me at like a tolerant sibling whose kid brother has just showed up uninvited to a gathering of friends.

“Dude pulled a knife on me,” he said without any preamble.

When I asked where the suspect was, the captain told me he was still in his apartment.

“He still has the knife?” I asked.

“No.” The captain then held up a rather large chef’s knife.

“He gave it to you?” I said, surprised at this unexpected turn of events.

“When I punched him in the face, he dropped it,” the captain explained. “I picked it up.”

“Do you want me to arrest him for the knife,” I asked, wondering if I had any evidence bags big enough for the blade he was holding.

The fire captain gave me a look like I was being particularly slow on the uptake that day.

“The guy is off his meds. He needs to go to the hospital, not to prison.”

“So, why am I here?” I was starting to feel a bit slow now as well.

“He needs to go to the hospital,” the captain said, enunciating each word very carefully.

“Take him to the hospital,” I said, helpfully.

“He is refusing to go.”

“And…?”

“And he needs to go.”

The lightbulb finally clicked on for me. When somebody refuses to receive any medical care, fire fighters and paramedics do not have the authority to force that person to get help. Police officers, in specific situations, do. This was one of those situations. The captain wanted me to make sure the guy in the apartment went to get that much needed help.

“Where is he?” I asked.

The captain pointed to a ground floor apartment several yards away. The front door was standing open, and through the open doorway, I could see a young man sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding his head in his hands and rocking slowly back and forth. “His name is Kevin,” said the captain before sending me on my way.

I approached “Kevin,” and found him crying in the living room of his apartment. He glanced up at me when I walked into the room and I could see his nose was bleeding. Apparently, the fire captain had a really mean right jab.

“He hit me,” said Kevin.

“You threatened him with a knife,” I said, knowing he was referring to the captain.

Kevin nodded and started to cry again.

I quickly but carefully checked Kevin’s pockets and waistband to make sure he did not have any more weapons and found nothing in his possession.

“You called us for help,” I told him. “The fire department wants to take you to the hospital. Will you go with them and get that help you wanted?”

Kevin shook his head.

“I can make you go, if I have to, Kevin. You know that, right? I don’t want to do that. I think it would be better for you and everyone else if you went voluntarily.”

He shook his head again.

“Why don’t you want to go?”

“I don’t want him to hit me again,” Kevin told me, pointing at the fire captain standing outside.

I almost laughed but I didn’t think that response would be totally appropriate given the circumstances. The only reason Kevin wasn’t already on his way to the hospital was he was afraid the captain was going to punch him. Again.

I asked, “If I make him promise not to hit you again, will you go to the hospital?”

Kevin nodded.

Thirty seconds later, Kevin was in the ambulance and on his way to the hospital, smiling and joking with the paramedics.

“You’re welcome,” I told the fire captain, although nobody had bothered to thank me at that point.

The captain smiled at me, then said, “Hey, Gary. What does a cop and a fire fighter have in common?”

I shook my head, knowing I probably didn’t want to hear the answer.

“When they were little boys, they both wanted to grow up to be firemen.”

And the rivalry continues.

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SWAT Training

Before the knee injuries, shoulder muscle tears, back strains, and all the other general aches and pains that come with living on this planet for 50-plus years, there was once a time that I wanted to be on the police SWAT team. I was in my twenties, lean and healthy, and I still had that young person’s feeling of immortality. In other words, I was young and stupid.

The Hillsborough Police Department (HPD), where I worked at the time, did not have their own SWAT team. We were too small. With only 20 or so people working for the agency, it was not possible to fund and train our own emergency response team. Instead, we requested to be part of the San Mateo County SWAT team.

They trained us and, in return, we agreed to send SWAT trained officers to assist the County during any emergency call-outs. It was a good deal and benefitted both agencies.

HPD’s goal was to have two SWAT-trained officers on each shift. This was a bit tricky since most of our shifts only had three or four people total. Between trying to schedule time off for training and the high failure rate of SWAT candidates, we were lucky to have one officer on each shift with the desired certification.

After a few years with my department, I advised my supervisors that I was interested in attending the training. They put my name on a list, then told me that before I could go, I needed to meet certain physical requirements before I could attend the training.

I was told that I needed to be able to run 2 miles in under 15 minutes, complete 50 pushups in under a minute, complete 60 sit-ups in under 2 minutes, do two pullups while wearing a 40 pound backpack, and qualify as “marksman” in both the pistol and rifle.

With a bit of work, I was able to achieve each of these goals.

So, what made me think about SWAT physical fitness requirements after all these years? Let me tell you.

The other day, I got up and went for a two-mile run through my neighborhood. When I was done, I was feeling pretty proud of myself that I had finished the two miles in under 20 minutes. That was when I realized that I was still 5 minutes slower than my pace for the same distance 30 years ago.

That doesn’t bother me too much, especially since I know I’m fortunate to be running at all after the beating my body took for so many years. 20 minutes is a freaking Olympic gold medal performance for me these days. It did, however, get me thinking about the other requirements on the list and how well I have held up over the years.

I no longer hold “marksman” certifications at the range. I can still hit a target when I absolutely must, but my accuracy has slipped the tiniest bit over the past few years. In fact, the nicest thing one of the department range masters has said to me in years is, “Well, Sarge. I’ve seen you do worse.”

Not exactly SWAT-worthy I suppose, but at least I passed.

I can still do 50 pushups. It just takes me a few hours and several rest periods to manage it. Same thing with the 60 sit-ups, and that’s only if you count lying on the floor and bobbing your head back and forth as a sit-up.

I discovered that I can still do two pullups, but that’s if I’m standing on the 40-pound backpack instead of wearing it. I’m already carrying around an extra 40 pounds that I didn’t have when I was 25 years old, so wearing a weighted backpack is just redundant anyway.

Besides, I can’t think of a time in my entire career that I’ve ever run into a pullup emergency. I’ve never shown up on a call for service and had somebody say, “Officer, you have to save his life! You just need to grab onto that bar and pull on it until your head rises just above it!”

Not once in 25 years.

Basically, I’m not exactly ready to pass a SWAT physical agility test anytime soon. Not that I really have any desire to do so. These days, the only emergencies I have to respond to are mad dashes to the store because I’ve run out of something I needed to fix dinner. And sometimes, I’m not even up to doing that.

I’m just happy with my morning 20-minute run. I don’t need anything more.

If anyone is wondering whether I ever joined the San Mateo County SWAT team, the short answer is:

No.

The long answer is:

… No.

By the time my turn came around to go to training, my wife got a job in Sacramento and I had made the decision to move there with her. My bosses told me they were not going to pay to send me to training just so I could take that skillset to another agency. I guess I can’t argue with that logic. Why buy a chauffer a brand-new car just so they can drive someone else around in it?

Now, you’re probably wondering if I ever went to SWAT training with Sacramento County.

Nope. Didn’t do that either.

By this time, I had two little girls in the house. After spending every free moment of my time chasing EM1 and EM2 around, I decided occasionally getting some sleep was more important than joining the SWAT team.

I still think that was the right decision.

The sleeping thing. Not necessarily the having kids thing. The jury is still out on that one.

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Haunted House

Although I love to write about ghosts, demons, and hauntings, I don’t really believe in them. That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, however. I don’t believe in putting pineapple on a pizza, but I know it still happens.

The stories of haunted houses have always interested me, but I have never actually been in one.

At least, I don’t think I have.

What am I talking about? Well, let me take you back about twenty-five years. I was working as a patrol officer for the Hillsborough Police Department. I had been with them for about three years and, by that time, I was pretty sure I had seen just about everything there was to see.

This is a dangerous assumption on the part of many young officers. Usually by year ten you start to realize that you will never actually see it all. Something will always find a way to surprise you no matter how jaded you become. There will always be some drunk, naked man breaking into a McDonald’s after it closes for the night so he can grill up his own hamburgers. There will always be a medical call for that moron who swallowed 18 steel ball bearings because his roommate bet him ten bucks he wouldn’t do it.

In short, there will always be something to make you say, “Hmmm. That’s a new one.”

I wasn’t there yet. I was still pretty cocky at this point, and I felt very confident that I could not be surprised by anything or anyone.

One afternoon, while on patrol, I was dispatched to a residential burglar alarm. The dispatcher advised me that the homeowners had been contacted and they were on their way back home to meet me.

I arrived a few minutes later to find Doug (another officer working that day) standing in the driveway of the house talking with a young man and woman that I assumed were the homeowners. I got out of my car, walked up the driveway and spoke with them.

The couple unlocked their front door and Doug and I went into the house first to make sure there was no one inside. After checking the home and finding it empty and no sign of any break-in, we let the couple come inside and they turned off the alarm.

I advised dispatch that we were all okay and I was told that this was the fourth false alarm at this particular house in three months. I passed the information along to the family and told them that they needed to find out what was causing the false alarms, or the city might start billing them every time the police came out.

The woman told me, “Oh, we know what’s causing the alarms. It’s the ghost.”

I looked toward her husband, fully expecting him to say something like, “She’s kidding.” Or, “Don’t listen to her. My wife forgot to take her medication this morning.”

He said neither of those things. Instead, he just nodded and said, “Yeah. There’s a ghost in our house.”

I glanced at Doug, wondering which one of us was going to bring up the topic of psychiatric treatment first. Before either of us could say a word, however, we both heard a noise from somewhere deeper in the house. It sounded like someone bouncing a tennis ball on a hardwood floor.

All four of us glanced down a hallway in time to see a yellow ball roll out of one of the bedrooms on the right side, cross the hallway, and go into a bedroom on the left.

Doug drew his service weapon and immediately went to investigate.

The husband looked at me as Doug left and mouthed the word, “ghost.”

I saw Doug turn into the right bedroom and disappear. He came out a moment later and stepped into the left bedroom. After another few seconds, he walked back to where I was standing with the homeowners, holstered his weapon, and said, “We’re done here.”

The next thing I heard was the front door closing behind Doug as he left the house.

I finished speaking with the couple, said goodbye and went outside to speak with my partner, but he was already in his car and driving away. I won’t say he was necessarily in a hurry to get out of there, but he certainly wasn’t taking his time, either.

I thought this behavior was a little odd, so I got on my car radio and asked him to meet up with me a little later in the shift.

When I finally got a chance to speak with him, I asked what happened.

He said, “Gary, I am never going in that house again.”

“Why not,” I asked, waiting for him to start laughing and admit he was just joking to try and spook me.

“I went into the first room and there was nobody there.”

That wasn’t surprising to hear. We had already searched the house and found it empty. The ball could have been pushed by a breeze and rolled off a shelf or dresser. I told Doug what I was thinking.

He said, “Yeah. I thought the same thing, but then I went into the other room and I couldn’t find the ball. It was just gone.”

“I think the ghost took it,” he told me.

Doug wasn’t smiling when he said it. To this day, he has never changed his story or admitted he was lying. I am not 100 percent certain whether he is telling me the truth about what happened, or if he is just really good at stretching out a practical joke.

I do know, however, that he never went back into that house. And to be completely honest, neither did I.

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I also see no reason why I should push my luck.

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Asleep At the Wheel

As I have mentioned before, my first job in law enforcement was with the Hillsborough Police Department. What I may have failed to mention about HPD was that it was an extremely small agency. The city was residential homes only – no businesses and no shops – and no more than about 11,000 people resided there.

My badge number was 23, and that was the highest numbered badge in the agency. That might give you some idea of just how small we were.

I worked the graveyard shift for the first several years. Ordinarily, working all night as a police officer is not terribly difficult as there is always something to do to keep you awake and busy. Not in Hillsborough, however. It seemed like the town rolled up its streets at 11 o’clock every night.

With no businesses, and all the residents asleep at night, there was very little for an officer to do in the wee hours of the morning in that town. This was before we had cellphones that would let you watch movies, play games, or check out social media. In fact, if I’m being totally honest, this was before we had cell phones at all.

Some nights, I would read a book. Others, I might meet another officer in our department break room and put a movie into the VHS. Sometimes, however, I would park my car in a dark corner, turn my radio to maximum, and fall asleep.

This may shock some people who have never tried to stay up all night driving a car at slow speeds when there are absolutely no calls for service and nothing to do, but sometimes a graveyard cop just needs to take a nap.

It didn’t happen all the time, but it wasn’t rare either. Rather than fall asleep while driving and waking up parked on someone’s front lawn (which also happened more than I care to remember) it was safer to just park somewhere isolated and close my eyes. I had supervisors that told us they would rather we get some sleep when we need it, instead of crashing the patrol car. It meant less paperwork for them and smaller insurance premiums for the city.

Until one day in briefing, we got a new memo. My sergeant announced that the new chief, Bob McNichol, had announced a moratorium on any cops sleeping while on duty. It had always technically been against the rules, but now the chief was asking the supervisors to enforce the rule and write up any officers caught sleeping in their patrol cars.

My sergeant shook his head at the new order. “This is bullshit,” he said to me and the other officers in the briefing room. “When the chief was a patrol officer, he was asleep in his uniform more than he was awake in it. They might as well have been pajamas.”

But the rules are the rules. My sergeant told us all that from that day forward, if he caught anyone sleeping, it would mean a write up in their file.

I lasted about a week.

One night, there was nothing going on and I was absolutely exhausted from lack of sleep during that past day. The sergeant had warned everyone to stay awake, but it wasn’t as if he was driving around actively searching for officers breaking this particular rule. I decided that I was going to risk it. Just this once.

I pulled my patrol car into the city corps yard, where all the black and white vehicles that needed repair or that had not yet been put into service were located, backed into an empty parking spot to blend in with all the other vehicles, and closed my eyes.

I must have been more tired than I thought. I went out. Hard.

When I woke up, the sun was coming up and the sky had already lightened considerably.

I wiped the sleep crud out of my eyes and looked around. That was when my heart stopped beating for a second.

Parked directly next to me was my sergeant’s car, and he was sitting behind the wheel barely three feet away from me. I figured I was busted and resigned myself to a new letter in my file. I even spent a moment wondering if I should sign the reprimand in blue ink or use red just for dramatic effect.

That’s when I noticed something odd. My sergeant wasn’t looking at me. In fact, he wasn’t looking at anything.

He was fast asleep.

I guess he had pulled up next to me, then while waiting for me to wake up and notice him parked right beside me, he dozed off.

One trick you learn about sleeping in a patrol car is: always leave the car running. That way the radio is always on and you can keep the heater running on particularly cold nights. It is also a lot quieter if you need to leave in a hurry without having to start your engine first.

When I realized that the sergeant was out, I dropped my car into gear, released the brake, and let the car slowly roll out of the parking spot. When I was about ten feet away, I hit the gas and fled for the open road.

At the end of my shift, I just happened to see my sergeant in the halls of the police station as I was getting ready to leave. He waved at me and said, “See you tomorrow.”

I waved back.

That was it. No comments or reprimands about sleeping. I guess my disappearing act had made him realize that he, too, had fallen asleep. I had dodged a bullet.

Fortunately, he had no desire to throw stones in this particular glass house.

That was just fine with me. If he didn’t want to talk about it, then neither did I.

I ran for the parking lot, jumped in my personal vehicle and headed home.

I can’t say that was the last time I ever fell asleep while on duty, but I can say that was the last time I ever let myself get caught.

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It’s Not What You Know, It’s Who You Know

My oldest daughter, EM1, is out of school and trying to figure out exactly what it is she wants to do for the rest of her life. She currently works a couple of part-time jobs, but her goal is to have full-time employment by this summer.

We shall see how that works out.

Job hunting is never fun, and it can be quite a beating to your ego as you hear people tell you “no” over and over. I still recall when I was in my twenties and I was trying to get my first job in law enforcement. In the early nineties, jobs were scarce and there were hundreds of people trying to get hired for every two or three jobs out there. I applied to dozens of police departments and most of them simply put my application in their files and I never heard from the again.

Even the departments that brought me in for testing and interviews were just establishing hiring lists for positions that didn’t exist. My name was on so many lists I lost track of the agencies I had applied to, but my phone still never rang.

Finally, tired of waiting for someone to hire me, I decided to put myself through the police academy on my own and hope that with an academy certificate I would be a more desirable candidate.

Okay, honestly, I didn’t put myself through the academy. I didn’t have any money. My grandfather agreed to pay for my training, so I guess you could say that he put me through the academy. He also told me that if I could get hired by a police department before I graduated the academy, I did not have to repay him for the loan.

Of course, he was also pretty confident I wasn’t going to get hired anytime soon.

While in the academy, I met a guy who had been hired by the Hillsborough Police Department (HPD). HPD was paying all of his expenses (unlike myself) and as soon as the academy concluded, he had a job and a paycheck waiting for him. His name was Steve.

Steve and I became friends while we were in the academy. We hung out during most of the breaks, partnered up during scenarios, and then, during classes, he would try to get me kicked out of the academy.

Steve was the guy that will talk to you continuously while an instructor is giving a lecture, or write notes and pass them over to you, never getting caught or drawing unwanted attention to himself. I did not have that same skill. The first time I said something back or opened the note to read it, I would find the instructor standing over my shoulder and asking me if I thought I had more important things to do than pay attention.

Steve would sit next to me with a stern expression on his face as if admonishing me that, “Yes, Gary, you should shut up and listen. Can’t you see the rest of the class is trying to learn something?”

Sadly, this sort of thing happened to me on multiple occasions. Steve wouldn’t let up, and I was incapable of learning how to ignore him.

Somehow, I managed not to get tossed out, despite Steve’s best efforts at sabotage. And as the final weeks of the academy rolled around, it appeared that I was going to make it to graduation. I did not have a job to look forward to, but at least I would have my academy certificate.

One day, Steve came up to me on a break and told me, “I have some good news.”

I wondered if that meant he had figured out a new tactic for getting me in trouble or thrown out of the academy. Turned out, however, that he actually did have good news.

He told me that the Hillsborough Police Department was hiring. He said they had only one position open, but he told them about me and suggested that I would be a good hire for them. He also said the chief at HPD wanted me to send him my resume.

“Um, when?” I asked.

“Now,” he told me.

“Now, now?”

“Right this second, now,” he confirmed.

Well, I didn’t have a resume with me, so with a pen and a sheet of binder paper, I wrote a mostly blank page of reasons why HPD should hire me, then put at the bottom: “Almost graduated from the police academy.”

Next, using the fax machine at the academy office, I sent this illegible sheet of scribbles to Steve’s bosses. It was the most embarrassing job application I have ever submitted. It looked like a ten-year old was writing an essay for his teacher on, “Why I want to be a policeman.”

That should have been the last thing I ever heard from HPD. However, three weeks later, exactly two days before I was scheduled to graduate from the academy, HPD called to tell me that they wanted to hire me.

Steve, the guy I thought was secretly trying to guarantee that I never made it through the police academy, had found me a job. To this day, I still can’t believe the sheer luck it took to be in the right place at the right time with the right person on my side to get me hired.

I found out later that fifty people had applied for that single opening at HPD, but it was Steve’s recommendation that opened the door for me. To this day, I am grateful to him for that.

When I got hired, I called my grandfather that night. I was excited about finding a job and I wanted to thank him again for paying the tuition for my academy training.

I also wanted to let him know that I would not be paying him back.

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